U.S. President Donald Trump applauds the crowd of supporters at the Phoenix Convention Center as he takes the stage during a rally on August 22, 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo: Ralph Freso/Getty IU.S. President Donald Trump applauds the crowd of supporters at the Phoenix Convention Center as he takes the stage during a rally on August 22, 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo: Ralph Freso/Getty Images)

"This Trump speech is like something out of a psychopathology textbook."
—Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

"Trump," Taibbi wrote, was in "full delusion-mode" throughout the evening, fuming to the delight of his supporters in the crowd about the media's focus on his defense of white supremacist violence, railing against states moving to take down Confederate statues, and accusing news outlets of "turning off live feedsbecause they're afraid of his words."

The president also floated the possibility of a government shutdown if Congress refuses to authorize funds for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and claimed that former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio—who last month was found guilty of criminal contempt for ignoring a court order demanding that his department stop racially profiling Latinos—was "just doing his job."

"This Trump speech is like something out of a psychopathology textbook," Taibbi concluded.

Others shared Taibbi's assessment, denouncing on social media and in aghast statements the "unhinged," "hostile," and "incoherent" nature of Trump's campaign-style rally.

Marchers demanding "truth" in New York City on Saturday morning. Backed by dozens of local groups and national organizations—including MoveOn, Women’s March, Indivisible, Public Citizen, Free Speech for People, and Town Hall Project—the marches were scheduled in at least 140 cities and towns across all fifty states. (Photo: @MarchforTruth17/Twitpic)

Just days after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement and with the testimony of fired FBI director James Comey scheduled for next week, U.S. citizens gathered for protests in cities nationwide on Saturday to denounce the president's penchant for lying, obscuring facts, and promoting alternative realities.

There is a great race going on in American Politics.. Can President Trump remove all the checks and balances to the point where the President controls everything and the US becomes a Putin like oligarchy? Can he do this before those checks and balances impeach him? That is the Great Race. That is the real game plan. All the rest is a distraction and a probe by Trump to find out who will back him and who he needs to get rid of to become King.

In this Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, file photo, people react as U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz speaks during a town hall meeting at Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. Some attendees of the contentious town hall hosted by Chaffetz last week, have sent the congressman fake invoices after he claimed some people there were paid protesters. (Photo: AP/Rick Bowmer, File)

large marches, in Washington, DC and around the country, calling attention to importance of science and focusing on the calamitous impacts of climate change had impressive turnouts. But the protests would have been more productive if they concentrated more – in their slogans and signs – on 535 politicians to whom we have given immense power to influence policies relating to those issues, for ill or for good.

I’m speaking of Congress.

"For a national, comprehensive change movement, it is the Congress which must be effectively and forcefully instructed to act in the public interest."

Congress cannot be ignored or neglected simply because we know it to be a corporate Congress, or a gridlocked Congress, or a Congress that is so collectively delinquent, or perk and PAC addicted, or beholden to commercial interests, or self-serving through gerrymandered electoral districts where they, through their party’s controlled state government, pick the voters to elect them.

Sure, there are probably 100 good legislators on Capitol Hill. But many of these progressive elected officials fail to effectively network with citizen groups, or organize left-right coalitions back home into an unstoppable political force. Issues that invite such left/right consensus are numerous, including raising the federal minimum wage, protecting civil liberties, tackling government waste and corruption, advancing solar energy, reforming the corporate tax system, full Medicare for All (with free choice of doctor and hospital) and a crackdown on corporate crime and abuses against consumers, workers and communities. Polls show big majorities behind these and other much needed redirections and reforms.

All these improvements in the lives of all Americans have to go through Congress. Sure, some efforts can be partially achieved by self-help and state/local governments. But for a national, comprehensive change movement, it is the Congress which must be effectively and forcefully instructed to act in the public interest.

President Trump, his children and their spouses, aren’t just using the Oval Office to augment their political legacy or secure future riches. Okay, they certainly are doing that, but that’s not the most useful way to think about what’s happening at the moment. Everything will make more sense if you reimagine the White House as simply the newest branch of the Trump family business empire, its latest outpost.

It turns out that the voters who cast their ballots for Donald Trump, the patriarch, got a package deal for his whole clan. That would include, of course, first daughter Ivanka who, along with her husband, Jared Kushner, is now a key political adviser to the president of the United States. Both now have offices in the White House close to him. They have multiple security clearances, access to high-level leaders whenever they visit the Oval Office or Mar-a-Lago, and the perfect formula for the sort of brand-enhancement that now seems to come with such eminence. President Trump may have an exceedingly “flexible” attitude toward policymaking generally, but in one area count on him to be stalwart and immobile: his urge to run the White House like a business, a family business.